Comments from evmovieguy

The Waverly was one of the first theaters I saw a movie at when I moved to NYC in 1986. I saw ‘Blue Velvet’ and there was still a balcony in the auditorium. The first film that I saw in the ridiculously small balcony ‘theater’ when it was twinned was ‘Sex Lies & Videotape’ in 1989. Some of the other films I saw there were ‘My Own Private Idaho’ and ‘Silence of the Lambs’. Great theater. Even greater before they twinned it when the balcony was still there.

Just saw the screening of ‘South Pacific’ at the Cinerama Dome. I am in town for awhile from NYC and I was amazed at this theater that I have waited so long to visit. It really is a bit of a mind blower. The film was introduced by none other than Mitzi Gaynor herself. It was great to see this legend in person, and the print was one of the cleanest I have ever seen. Absolutely crystal clear, colorful, and resonant. I was also in awe of the size of the screen image. The only setback to the whole night was the curvature of the image on the screen. It didn’t 100% fill the screen leaving the areas in the lower left and right noticeably empty. I was really glad to see this film in this theater, but it was a bit of a shame that the perspective of the image was a bit off. I’m not an expert by any means, but I do have a tad of projection booth experience. I’m guessing that this question may have been answered earlier in this thread, but I’m too lazy to backtrack. Were any of these prints designed to fill that screen? Was there ever a lens designed to take standard prints and project them so it could fill the screen? It was a bit distracting. Unfortunately I will be back on the east coast when the screening of ‘2001’ takes place. I’d be interested to see if the same problem exists with that print.

Does anybody have any contact info for this place? I’m trying to get a video project off the ground starting with this former theater. The management are okay people, but not very cooperative. The funny thing is that I spontaneously dropped by there last summer and just asked the manger on duty if I could go up and have a look at the old theater space. He thought about it for a sec and just let me up, no problem. I wandered around there uninterrupted for almost a half hour. When I came back a month or so later with my project idea I thought I would get the same kind of access, but they got very uptight. I have been in there one or two times over the last 6th months and even brought in my lap top to show them some of my previous work and an old photo of the theater. No dice, but the manager went as far as giving me a very generic corporate name of his landlord as a contact which so far is nowhere to be found on the web. Any help would be appreciated. I just want to get in there with a video camera for an hour, maybe 2 hours tops. Thanks!!!

I moved to NYC in 1986. I have heard about the St. Marks over the years and guess I missed it by a year or two. By the time I got here The Gap was already in place, the one corporate blemish on the block and probably the entire East Village at that time. The irony is…now that it’s gone, the rest of the block is now super corpo. Anyway the question is for anyone who might know: the building that the St. Marks Cinema formerly occupied…is that the building that’s there now or did they tear it down and put up the current structure?

“Still can’t figure out why they program stuff like Beauty and the Beast. Makes no sense to program a french art film in a movie palace no matter how great(and the Cocteau is a great one.)

I can’t figure out why they don’t play more movie palace movies.
The stuff that used to draw in the crowds to these places.
The comedy and Ape stuff is terrific.
But do we need the umpteenth revival of Blade Runner and Clockwork Orange which don’t even belong in such a venue?

Where are the MGM musicals, the Doris Day stuff, Elvis, Ann Margaret and Beach Party movies?
And when are we getting the great silents to be accompianied by the organ.
Also how about Disney films? There are a lot of wonderful live action films as well as the animated films that should be seen in a theater and not on video.
Tributes to the great stars and directors of the Hollywood period.
Cukor, Wilder, Wyler, Vidor, Ford,Capra, Hawks and Minnelli. And just not the most famous titles.
More cinemascope, more Vistavision.

posted by LeonLeonidoff on Apr 7, 2008 at 3:55pm"

I know this post I’m writing now is hot on the heels of the ‘All About Eve’ screening, which I didn’t go to. It sounds like it was amazing, but unfortunately I couldn’t get out of the city that night. However I do agree with the previous post from LeonLeonidoff. Although the Loews is an amazing place, and I’m more than glad that such a place exists, I do feel that their film programs are a little off the mark. Case in point was the ‘fantasy’ screenings they had. They may all have been great films, but to me the Loews isn’t the place for them. Prints I’m sure are hard to come by in some instances, but there has to be a ton out there that are available. In addition to what Leon said, I’d also like to add that the Loew’s should take every advantage of using the huge screen they have and screen ‘BIG" films. Seeing films like 'Ben-Hur’ on the big screen is an amazing experience you just can’t get from watching it on television. I know the Loews may have screened that film in the past but they need to concentrate more on Classic films shown in a Classic environment. I’d much rather see “Cleopatra” or “The 10 Commandments” on that big screen than say ‘The Princess Bride’. In fact, seeing something like the latter of those titles will only make me stay home or find something else to do.

Saw a screening of ‘Shine A Light’ tonight at the Ziegfeld. I love having excuses to go this theater.

I’m a big Stones and Scorcese fan, and at best this was a fun film. Looked and sounded great. But unlike Scorcese’s other concert film ‘The Last Waltz’ this movie didn’t have much to offer much other than making you feel that you were actually at a Stones show. ‘The Last Waltz’ felt like it went a little more in depth and didn’t just feel like a concert film. The occasional cutaways in ‘Shine A Light’ to archival interview footage was fun. I actually wish there was more of it. Keith’s portion of the film was somewhat poignant being that he is the most weather-beaten rock star/trooper of all time, and he, in my opinion, is really starting to show it. The other scene stealer was Buddy Guy’s performance. If there were any scenes in the film that screamed ‘the Stones still got it’ it was that one. Guy and the Stones together created a really memorable performance. Jack White’s performance of ‘Loving Cup’ was notable but a tad uninspired. Christina Aguillera? Same thing. Even though she can project real well as a vocalist, it just seemed like generic ‘American Idol’ white soul wannabe stuff. Other than that, it was nothing more than just a film that made you feel like you were at the show. Nothing gained, nothing lost. I’m a little surprised Scorcese chose to do this project. It was well done, but not necessarily a strong picture.

Went to a 5PM screening of ‘Planet of the Apes’ yesterday. Great job once again by the Ziegfeld. It was absolutely amazing to see this film, which I had never seen before, on that beautiful big screen. POA was a little different than I expected to be. It was less of an action picture than I thought. By no means a disappointment. I found the ‘message’ pretty interesting, and was surprised by how much of the 60s zeitgeist was included in the ideas of the script. Heston even says ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30’ at the end of the film. What was also interesting WAS the ending of the film itself. The director chose to ignore going out with a bang. Instead the film kind of glided out still having an impact. Really great!
This film was definitely ahead of it’s time, not as much as say ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, but I would put it up there as groundbreaking film.

Seeing this film at the Ziegfeld once again shows how IMPORTANT it is to see these films on the big screen. I mean how many 19" TVs or 46" flat screen TVs would it take to fill that screen? Think about it.

Looking forward to seeing the Scorcese/Stones film, all of the Bond week, and I think I’ll even see the new Indiana Jones flick even though I am not a big Spielberg fan. Unless that film tanks, which I’m betting it won’t, it will probably be playing there for the entire summer.

Anybody know what the deal is with the Clearview/Ziegfeld classics schedule? When I bring up the website the musicals week is no longer listed. They only have the schedules listed starting with Spielberg week. Was something changed? Check it out for yourself.

That above post really scared the hell out of me until I read the fine print. When I hit the link the New York Times page it appeared on it had today’s date. I breathed a sigh of relief after I read THE REST of the post that said the publication date was from 1984, and confirmed it on the NYT page. Whew! On the other hand, at this point I think I’m more prepared for disappointments like this because it’s become a regular occurrence for the most part. Thank god it wasn’t what I thought it was, and that the Loews Jersey has been living on and will continue to live on well into the future.

There’s a scene in the first half hour or so of John Boorman’s ‘Point Blank’ (1967) starring Lee Marvin with the Tiffany in the background. In one of the scenes when Marvin returns to LA to find his wife Keenan Wynn is standing against a car with the Tiffany clearly in the background. Pretty cool. I didn’t know this theater existed until I saw the movie and then came here to CT and confirmed it. Wouldna been able to do that in the years before the internet!!

The interior of this theater is one of the most amazing that I have ever seen. Just absolutely overwhelmingly beautiful. I was there tonight to see Neil Young. Unfortunately his show wasn’t as cool as the theater. And that’s coming from a hardcore Neil Young fan. It looks like they are now using this as a regular venue for concerts, and they should!! It’s just great that this place has been preserved as well as it has been. A really amazing piece of architecture.

I just went to the Clearview Special Engagement website and saw that Sat. NIght Fever is being held over through this weekend, but Porgy and Bess is no longer on the calendar. They just have Blade Runner down as the next feature. Anybody know what’s going on here?

‘nope. It was at the Astor, which was the Ziegfeld’s rival at the time, and was owned by Loews until it was closed three years ago. It is now the Nokia Theater.’

That was a possibility I was thinking of. Not surprised. I have been to the Nokia a few times so far to see music. Last movie I saw there was a 70mm print of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ back in 2002-03 (?)

Was at the 7:30 show for SNF on Friday night. Not a bad turn out at the start of the last holiday weekend of the summer. I would say the place was between a quarter to half full give or take. Before the show there was a couple dressed in vintage disco garb that performed a dance similar to the one Tony and Stefanie perform during the contest. They even used the Tavares ‘More Than A Woman’ track to do their number to. It was fun and they were pretty good.

As for the film itself, I hadn’t seen this on the big screen since it came out in ‘77 when I was 10 years old. It was probably one of the first R-rated films my parents took me too. Quality at the Ziegfeld; sounded great. I was hoping for surround sound, but was that even part of the original releases? Did we have major surround sound back in '77? When I say 'surround sound’ I mean hearing it out of all of those side speakers in the theater, which I don’t think I heard, nonetheless it did sound great. As far as picture, I thought particularly in the first reel that the picture was a good 25% darker than it should have been. No fault of the Ziegfeld at all. I’m just wondering when the distributor is telling the theater to say this is a new print, where are they striking it from? Is it from the original negative they used back in the day, or is it from some 3rd or 4th generation internegative?

Anyway, it was great to be at the Ziegfeld again. I was also wondering, did SNF have it’s first run there?

I first saw Star Wars at the Loews Inverrary 3 on Oakland Park Boulevard in Lauderhill (right outside of Ft. Lauderdale), Florida. I was 10 years old. The theater was brand new back then, and even though it was a triplex the individual theaters were very large. Each almost the size of a single screen theater. I thought back then that Star Wars was a great film but I wasn’t as gaga about it as a friend of mine that lived in my apartment complex. Star Wars seemed to dictate every aspect of his life. He didn’t go around dressing like Luke or Darth or any of the other characters but he was a huge fan. I did like it enough to see it more than once, not something I did with movies back then. I usually saw them once and that was it. I think I may have seen it once or twice more at the Inverrary then I saw it at another theater at the Lauderhill Mall, the name of which escapes me. The Loews Inverrary 3 was converted to retail space not that long ago and the surrounding area has become low income and pretty shady. I’d like to say that it felt ‘like yesterday’ when I saw it, but it doesn’t. It was a long-ass time ago during a strange part of my upbringing. My parents' marriage was falling apart and things were getting weird. Nonetheless, a fun time to be a kid, and a great time for pop culture in America, way before the time of the CORPORATE pop culture we have to dredge through now. But back then it was great. Star Wars? Kiss? Peter Frampton on the radio? Mike Douglas & Merv on TV? It was a very cool time.

This was another fun theater that I went to alot in the 80s. I don’t remember it being there in 1978 though. That was the year the Broward Mall opened and there wasn’t much around it at the time. I seem to remember the UA Movies at Plantation opening before this theater, which was literally right down the road. I’d say Broward Mall 4 opened somewhere in the very early 80s. Perhaps ‘80, '81. Here are the flicks I remember seeing there:

Bachelor Party
Vision Quest
Tightrope
The Breakfast Club
9 ½ Weeks
Hitchcock’s Vertigo (in a theatrical re-release)
E.T. ( thought it was a sappy film then and still do)
Unfaithfully Yours w/Dudley Moore (it wasn’t a critical or box office hit but I remember laughing my ass off. I thought it was so frickin funny that I convinced my sister to go see it with me a second time. As I recall she didn’t think it was nearly as funny as I did.)o

I probably saw other films there that I can’t remember off-hand, but two others that I saw there that stand out were the theatrical re-release of Blazing Saddles and the first run of Prince’s Purple Rain.
The night I went to see Blazing Saddles the theater was packed and was in complete stiches all during the film. Uproarious laughter the whole time. I had never seen the film before that, and it had me cracking up pretty hard as well.

Purple Rain was interesting because it was the first time I think I had seen a movie conceived by and starring a current Rock/Pop star that was specifically geared to my age group. The teens of the 80s really didn’t have their own version of something like ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, so when Purple Rain came along it seemed to validate or galvinize whatever was happening as far as the music and the attitudes of alot of the kids then. MTV sort of did that for the first year or two that it was on, but actually having a ‘rock and roll’ film with uncensored material in it brought up a slightly a notch or two. Prince was a huge star but he was also unique enough to appeal to one’s underground tastes, so if you liked this movie then you didn’t feel like a ‘sell-out’. Sounds silly now but it was pretty important then…

I know some of the comments above may sound negative, and please don’t misinterpret my tone here, I don’t mean to rant and be nasty to anybody..but the negative part of the philosophy that I talked about is also reality. I’m not challenging your point of view, just venting, if that’s okay. I can face the reality of a New York City that is sterile and devoid of any real character, or any character that’s left, but I don’t have to like it. To make a long story short, there are less things to do here than there were in the past. Unless you have lots of money that is. Wanna go see some great old movies on a Friday or Saturday at an old revival house on a screen the way they were meat to be seen? Can’t, unless you wait around for something cool to come to Film Forum, and ocassionally at Loews Jersey, or the rarity at Ziegfeld or Radio City. Wanna go see a grungy rock band in some dark club? Can’t, there ARE no more rock clubs in Manhattan. The ’re-developers' are pricing them all out. Wanna see your favorite classic rock band at Madison Square Garden like The Stones or The Police. Sure…you can if you have a minimum of $600 for a pair of nose-bleed seats. Wanna go to a Broadway show? Sure…now that they’ve figured out that customers will pay exorbitant prices from rock concerts, they’re jacking up ticket prices too. And if you want to move to Manhattan now, you’d BETTER have some money or a rich mom and dad. Living in the East Village now? Got $2600 dollars a month to live in a ‘large studio’ in a 100 yr old tenament walk up? At this point I can’t see why in the world any 20-something year old would want to move here now. It’s the suburbs, just more expensive and harder to get around. See…all of those great, unique, little middle-class pleasures that used to exist in New York are disappearing, because collectively across the US, that class of people is disappearing as well. Where in the past there were little enclaves of art, music, and general ‘unique-ness’ for lack of a better term, New York now belongs exclusively to the priveleged and wealthy. It’s no longer limited to Park Avenue and the Upper West Side. I don’t want to live in a crime ridden neighborhood and have to watch my back all the time anymore than the next guy, but with all the ‘redevelopment’ comes STERILITY. The board of directors want the riff-raff gone…totally. And that riff-raff includes the middle class. They don’t understand it and they dont want it around..period!Some call it progress, and that’s okay, but it’s not progress for all, just for those that can afford it. And if those that can’t afford to go out or find anything to do, isn’t it just a little sad that we all have to be at home ordering movies from Netflix to watch on DVD? Wasn’t New York about having experiences? People love the old theaters because they were fun to go to. You don’t get that at home watching a letter-boxed movie on your TV. Am I bitching & moaning right now? Totally. Am I bitter? If you don’t agree with me than I am, but that’s okay anyway, I’m an equal opportunity cynic, and don’t forget what Frank Zappa once said: “being cynical is a positive value” If there was a cooler city on the East Coast to go to, I would, but New York is sorta like the Roach Motel. ‘You can check, but you can’t check out.’ :–)

Unfortunately I think you’re right. Well, at least there was a little glimmer of hope there for a minute. But let’s face it, New York is being culturally castrated, and stripped of alot of the uniqueness that made it great in the first place. If things remained as they were up until say the mid 90s we would still have all of the cool revival houses that we had up until that time. Off the top of my head I can think of about a half-dozen amazing revival houses that are now long gone. Clearview and The Ziegfeld gave it a damn good try last year and you have to give them credit for it. I hate to sound like a crank, but sometimes New York just dissapoints me these days. All these cool places getting bull-dozed for condos and stuff. I mean..what the hell is this town about anymmore? Certainly not what it was. I think in the future The Ziegfeld will probably run a revival screening of SOMETHING for a short run, like when they did they ‘Spartacus’ thing a few years back. That is as long as we still have it here. Until then it’s Beyonce in the movies, and Bald Britney and American Idol on the TV. Deciline? What DECLINE???

Let’s face it guys, these are all good suggestions, but any classic film IMHO that is shown at the Ziegfeld has to one with WIDE appeal. Something like ‘Dragonslayer’ sounds cool, but it’s not going to appeal to the average Joe or Jane. Gotta get the musicals, classic wide-screen comedies, dramas, and thrillers. Just about any of Hitchcock’s well known films, for example would be a more realisitic succestion, or maybe even some classic sc-fi. I would suggest ‘Forbidden Planet’, but even that’s a stretch.

“Drew Barrymore was on "Live with Regis & Kelly” this morning. Regis mentioned they had the premiere of her new film with Hugh Grant “Music & Lyrics” last night at The Ziegfeld. Drew had high praise for the theater and said she loved it and has had a few premieres there and in the world of multiplexes it’s nice to have it. She said as long as she can she will keep the tradition alive."

Hmmm. Not a big fan of hers, but that’s cool to hear. Maybe someone should contact Drew about film revival in New York at the Ziegfeld. There’s tons of film revival in L.A. at classic theaters like the Egyptian, so I’m sure she’s no stranger to it.